The Post Office have gone totally and utterly mad.

Well I am amazed, I have just visited an institution that has managed the almost impossible task of making the complete fucking numpties at Tesco look good. 

It's called The Post Office.

Now in times past, the Queen used to own the PO and it worked, you went in and a two hundred years old assistant assisted you to post a letter or parcel.

Now it is so very different. 

The Post Office just off of Trafalgar Square has plumbed new depths of being completely useless.

First off they do not now have a queue. They have seating areas where, having taken a ticket from the machine, you wait.

There is of course no indication that you need to take a ticket and so initially you stand in what is the closest approximation to a queue in the hope that someone might help you.

Hearing the numbers being called out gave me the tip off and so I looked for a ticket machine and was given number 009. 

I heard 5 being called and then rather astonishingly number 470. Now slightly worried that there were hundreds of people in front of me, I asked a uniformed PO person what the form was.

It was at this stage that I discovered that my own stupidity at not having acquired fluency in Urdu was going to make the going rather tough.

I sort of managed to ascertain that I "should not vurry". So, without a single vurry in my head I waited and eventually number 9 was called out.

I was directed to a slightly odd box, which I entered to find a bloke seated at the other end. 

I presented my letter along with the request in English to have it sent registered.

He chatted away in Urdu for about a minute. I thought it a bit rude that having taken on board my request he was chatting to his mate, but no, it turned out he was talking to me.

And so there ensued a rather bizarre discussion where I had to try and decide what it was he meant using not much more than complete and utter guesswork. 

We eventually settled on my chosen option and he looked jolly pleased. He labelled my letter accordingly, took the rather eye watering amount of £6.70 from me ( for a registered letter from London to Heathrow for fucks sake!!!) handed me my change and then he hit with with this:

Man speaking Urdu: would you like a mortgage or re-mortgage?

Me: sorry?

Man speaking Urdu: would you like a mortgage or re-mortgage?

Me: I'm ever so sorry, what are you saying?

Man speaking Urdu: would you like a mortgage or re-mortgage?

Me: (thinking that the word mortgage maybe means "stamps" in Urdu) a mortgage?

Man speaking Urdu: (looking delighted that we'd finally made a connection,  yes, a mortgage or a re-mortgage!

At this stage I was reeling  and trying to reconcile my need to post a letter with his  desire to sell me a mortgage. 

I declined and just as he was about to start to sell me something else, probably a basket of dead monkeys for all I know, I had to hold my hand up and thank him for his time and for processing my letter but that I didn't want anything else.

FYI the box/cubicle he made me stand in had loads of cameras so I suspect I may appear in the not too distant future on some Dom Jolly style spoof TV programme. 

If it was not a joke then the Post Office management must be totally barking mad as who in their right mind pops out to post a letter and comes home with a bloody mortgage?

 

Peter's Procedure.

Look away if you are squeamish as yesterday I had my first ever procedure!

Having self administered an enema, which alarmingly came through the post with quite vague instructions, I went to the hospital for 10am appointment.

Needless to say I was 45 minutes early, but this worked in my favour as after I'd registered and had the whole routine explained to me, I was positioned on my side and the Doc got to work.

His initial assessment was that even though I'd done one enema, I was essentially full of shit. Not his exact words but I could see very clearly on the HD screen magnified 40 times what he meant.

And so he gave me another enema. Hospital applied enemas are much more effective I can say as I was very soon quite empty! Though in my confusion, on my way back from the lavatory I didn't realise that the two gown ploy they'd suggested, one each way to give easy access but to hide my gentleman's sausage, had gone wrong as I had both gowns on the same way.

Thus the sausage was hidden but the backside was there for all to see! Ho ho ho, how we chuckled as the foreign nurse tried to help me. Tiny NHS gowns do not a Peter fit and thus we had some sort of wrestling match as she tried to wrench the second gown off of me.

And so, empty, the Doc had a good look, and so did a room full of other medical staff and me. The tech is so cool that I could see by backside from both angles! They can turn the camera around inside of you!!!!

The rather spiffing news is that I do not have bowel cancer today.

All in all a bit of a caper and actually (should I admit this?) quite a lot of fun.

The NHS today come in for a lot of stick but I must say they treated me with dignity and a very high level of professionalism. And for the merkins out there, not a single coin of the realm was required for me for get this treatment.

The costa Cretins.

Costa - Trafalgar Square - you complete and utter fucking cretins.

Peter: (shouting in English to make himself heard over the loud disco music being played) Medium americano, black to drink in.
Eastern European Lady: (shouting in Eastern European to make her self heard over the loud disco music being played) Medium or large?
Peter: (shouting in English to make himself heard over the loud disco music being played) Medium!
EEL: (shouting in English to make himself heard over the loud disco music being played) With milk?
Peter: (shouting in English to make himself heard over the loud disco music being played) No BLACK!
EEL: Take out?
Peter: For god's sake, turn that bloody racket down so we can actually hear each other!
EEL: Take out?
Peter is now having a coffee in The Starbucks around the corner.

Numpties.

Starbucks - you are going the same way as Tesco, be careful.

Starbucks in St Pancras.

Just had my usual punch up with the Starbucker and won, as is also always the case.

Peter: black coffee please, and in a real cup.

Starbucker: is that an Americano or a filter coffee?

Peter: I am indifferent to the daft names you call your coffee, so you choose.

Starbucker: well we only have Americano.

Me: in which case I'll have a black coffee please, medium and in a real cup.

Starbucker: I am sorry sir, we only have paper cups.

Peter: no you don't, look in the cupboards behind you, you have plenty of real cups. The fact that you want people to use paper cups to save on washing up is not my problem. 

Starbucker: I'll have to ask the manager. 

Peter: go ahead, he'll say yes. 

Starbucker then consults with manager who approves the use of a cup.

Starbucker then writes my order on the cardboard ring they put around the cup and hands it, with a China mug, to the coffee maker. CM did a double take as if she was trying to fathom how she was going to reconcile the cardboard ring with the China mug. She looked at me and asked what I wanted, medium black coffee was my reply. She set of to prepare said beverage. 

At this stage a lady appeared next to me, with lovely red hair by the way and this rather brilliant episode took place.

LWLRH: a normal tea please.

Starbucker: (said in the vein of an H E Bateman cartoon when someone passed the port incorrectly) A normal tea???

LWLRH: yes please, a normal tea, small please.

Starbucker: and nothing else? (almost shouted)

LWLRH: no thanks, just a normal small tea. 

Starbucker then shouted incredulously to the woman who prepares the drinks that a "Normal" tea was needed. The emphasis on the word normal was as if the LWLRH had asked to shag a donkey in reception.

WWPTD: a normal tea????? Also shouted.

Starbucker: yes!!!!

Of course needless to say I was laughing real tears at this stage and I asked LWLRH: is it always like this? to which she sighed and replied resignedly that "yes it is, I only want a tea but that fact always seems to upset them"

You see, it is not just me!

Alarming the residents of Rickmansworth.

I feel I should apologise to the bloke who followed me into Rickmansworth yesterday at 06:14

I had parked my car at the office and was walking into town to get a coffee.

Blissfully unaware that he was behind me, I decided to practice saying "I'm from Kettering" out loud and in many different voices. Even adding at one point that "I was from Kettering and in catering" which caused me to laugh a lot.

He must have been there for a while because when he finally passed me, he looked very alarmed.

A brilliant new game.

If I am to be remembered in the future I would like it to be for this, my latest cunning plan.

It's a game that may be played without the need for expensive equipment, electricity or in fact an iPad!

It's called Take Two Jokes - and I fully expect Radio 4 to take this up and make it into a 6:30 comedy show.

Here's how it works:

Take two jokes and marry the first line of joke one with the punchline of joke two.

Then take the first line of joke two and marry it with the second line of joke one.

Here is an example and it is based on the only two jokes I know.....

Part one.
Q: what is brown and sticky?
A: Carlos.

Part two.
Q: what do you call a Mexican who has had his vehicle stolen?
A: a stick.

New TV programme format.

I have a brilliant new idea for a TV programme that I hereby gift to anyone who'd like to use it.

It's to be called "Having it off with Kim Shadian" and it contains part contest, part TV reality show and some soft porn thrown in.

Basically what will happen is that five mindless cretins will be selected from a queue of people claiming they can sing and whisked off to LA where they will in turn have sex with Kim Shadian.

Whilst having sex, they will be filmed, in soft focus, as a bald green-grocer laughs furiously at them all the time shouting loudly "sex doesn't get much tougher than this".

Kim will then rate the five and the three highest scorers go into the final.

The two losers are flown back to the UK where they have to stand at the back of the queue to await their time for ritual humiliation at the hands of Cowell and his vicious band of thugs.

The three finalists will then be interviewed by Mr and Mrs Shadian assisted by a band of friends and hangers on. The essential quality being sought here is complete and utter stupidity.

The winner gets to marry Kim Shadian on a Friday afternoon in Vegas and then gets to spend a whole weekend being humiliated for not being rich by the Shadian clan. On Sunday evening it is back to Vegas to get a divorce and a plane back to Blighty.

Kim gets even more fame and thus money and all three finalists get a free medical check and a place in whatever singing contest they would like be useless in.

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